Irony58
Streaming Star
Joined 6 years ago
User Profile
User Widgets
Contributions
Re: Prime and Netflix crashing (All models)
I just ran across this topic in search of the same problem we're having. On both our TVs, a TCL 55S405, and an ONN (Walmart brand) 100012589. With us it's only Netflix giving us problems. When we start to watch a show, any show, we get things like video/audio freezing but closed captions continue running, Netflix crashing to the Roku home page, and sometimes the TV itself resets. This can happen 3 - 4 times before the show finally gets going. Once the show gets going smoothly for a couple minutes, it's usually good for the rest of the show, but occasionally, when we pause the show, we'll get those crashes when we resume. I know it's not our wifi or internet connection because we have since changed from Xfinity to Fidium Fiber, so we have a completely new internet connection and router. We changed over for other reasons, but were hoping the Netflix situation would clear up as a side effect. And I haven't yet tried any of the potential solutions in this topic, as my wife is in the middle of a show (non-Netflix). But we're frustrated enough to quit Netflix over this.2.2KViews1like0CommentsRe: AMC+ "Continue Watching" Option?
I contacted AMC+ Support, but just received back a generic: Thank you for contacting AMC+ customer support! We apologize for the inconvenience. Thanks for your feedback. AMC+ takes all viewer comments seriously. We will pass these along for further consideration. Thank you for taking the time to share your opinion. It's basically the online version of "Your call is important to us"... Maybe if more dissatisfied users of AMC+ submitted feedback, they might have real interest? Also, after I got that response, I got a survey request. So if anyone here gets a similar reply from AMC+, I suggest filling that survey with your dissatisfaction, too.1.9KViews0likes0CommentsRe: AMC+ "Continue Watching" Option?
RokuJohnB, no my problem has nothing to do with subtitles. The text I wrote about was a side comment about AMC+'s text size in their descriptions of episodes. The main question is about a problem I also have - AMC+ on Roku doesn't keep consistent track of already watched episodes. This seems as if Roku's got some kind of auto-reply system that keyed on the word "text".7.3KViews0likes1CommentRe: AMC+ "Continue Watching" Option?
Same problem here. I can't seem to find a "Continue Watching" list. Also, when I am able to find the show (they don't make it easy), it doesn't keep track of the episodes I've already watched. And, for even more fun, when I get to the list of episodes (again - without any indication of watched status), the description of the episodes are in pretty small text, so I have to get up to see if I recognize each episode. I'm going to look for the AMC+ support or maybe a forum like this one. They need to hire better User Experience developers.7.5KViews2likes4CommentsRe: Volume is too loud on commercials too low on shows/movies
I've got a TCL Roku TV and hate the loud commercials. Actually, the commercials are normal volume, but the shows are so low volume that I have to increase the volume to crazy levels just to hear the show. Then the commercials blast out. My TV does have a setting for volume leveling, but I can't enable it in my setup. I use the"headphone" jack to play sound through an external amplifier. As soon as I plug into that port, the Automatic Leveling option grays out and is inaccessible. Isn't that a bit dumb? If I did want to listen through actual headphones, automatic leveling is off, so instead of blasting out a speaker, I would get hearing damage. Pretty poor design decision.37KViews3likes0CommentsRe: Volume is too loud on commercials too low on shows/movies
Thanks for posting that. I tried it out and, sure enough, it seems that the loud commercials (or, more accurately, the soft program volume) has stopped. So much better! I'll be looking into more Roku shows now. I was avoiding the Roku Channel because I was tired of hitting "Mute" all the time. Interestingly enough, Hulu had the same problem, but that's now fixed. I had to see if the Roku TV itself had fixed the Volume Leveling, but that's unchanged.3KViews0likes0CommentsRe: TCL Roku TV can't enable Volume Leveling with headphone plugged in
Well... There still isn't unanimous consensus that digital is clearly superior to analog, at least in the audio spectrum. Many audiophiles today still insist that analog is better. They use vague qualities such as "warm" and "airy". And if you only consider the playback itself, and not the media (for now), the best argument you'll find from the digital proponents is that digital is "Just As Good"(tm) as analog, at least to human ears. But, technically, digital can't be anything more than a close approximation of the analog signal. You probably already know this, but for those tuning in who don't - The output from a Digital to Analog Converter (DAC) consists of a bunch of "steps" that come close to the smooth curves of the analog source. There are plenty of good drawings of this online, here's one: The closer you place those steps together, both horizontally (that's the sampling rate) and vertically (that's the bit depth), the better your digital output will come to the actual analog input. It can never equal the analog source, but to my unrefined ears, I hear no difference between the old-fashioned CDs and the older-fashioned vinyl records. So I agree with the digital folks that digital is "Just As Good"(tm) as analog. Where digital really shines is in the media. First off, records and magnetic tape media (reel-to-reel for the snooty audiophiles and cassette for the unwashed masses) degrade over time and usage. No matter how low mass your stylus is, it's still dragging over a softer vinyl track, so you lose response that way. And if you don't play that record in a vacuum, it'll get dirty and you'll hear those "warm" pops and skips. Magnetic tape drags over the player's pickup and can wear out, and also pick up dirt. Digital hard media (CDs and DVDs), however, can tolerate nasty stuff like dust and fingerprints because the digital bits themselves have a much higher signal to noise ratio, since they only need to be a '1' or a '0', not some tiny analog variation. And solid state memory based devices (USB sticks, computer memory, ...) are just bits stored somewhere, with no real physical properties. Which brings me to the best point - reproduction. You can make copies of copies of copies of digital media and it will exactly duplicate the original. Not so with analog. Even vinyl record masters wear out eventually. So why am I stating what most people already know? It's because my little solution to driving speakers from my TV is still mostly digital. Here are a couple "block diagrams" of two solutions. They're color coded - Black is the cable company or streaming service (Roku, Hulu, Netflix, ... infinity). Blue is the TV hardware. Red is my home hardware. And green is that little ARC/SPDIF converter box hardware. | Digital source |--->| DAC |--->| Headphone amp |===>| Amplifier |===>| Speakers | | Digital source |--->| HDMI/ARC/TOSLink drivers |--->| DAC |--->| Low-level output amp |===>| Amplifier |===>| Speakers | All the benefits of digital are right there at the cable company or streaming service. Eventually the audio needs to go analog to get to my ears, so adding that Amazon box is just moving similar hardware from inside the TV to outside. That's actually extra complexity, more connectors, more drivers/receivers, ... more places for things to fail. One argument not made in digital's favor is that the transmission media is better digitally. That's because it isn't. At audio frequencies and even the somewhat low amplitudes of headphone output, the signal to noise ratio is plenty high enough to allow the signal to allow noise-free listening. Digital transmission is a vast improvement in the RF world, where the S/N is way down in the weeds. So the only reason at all to go digital is to work around Roku's functionality deficiencies. I did Post on the Wishlist board about this, and also made the same suggestions, and reasoning, on my Support ticket, but I'm not going to hold my breath. I just hope that the gadget converter I get performs as well as my headphone cable and that Roku process their Volume Leveling to the digital outputs. I'll probably go with SPDIF, as I've only got one spare HDMI port and may need that for my grandson's X-Box.7.6KViews2likes2Comments